Alls Well in the Shire

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King opens in tight close-up on the rather awe-uninspiring image of a single, squirming earthworm pinched tightly in the fingers of a distinctly hobbity fisherman. The fisherman is Sméagol, which is to say the schizophrenic antihero Gollum before a certain misbegotten ring forever altered his fate. The sequence that follows, finally detailing for us the various stages of devolution between Sméagol and Gollum  both portrayed by the dazzling Andy Serkis  is one of the most assured and lyrical in a trilogy of films that has provided no shortage of memorable set pieces. But more important, Id say, is the opening image itself, definitive of the sustained interplay between things intimate and grand, organic and computer-generated, that has allowed Peter Jacksons unprecedentedly ambitious undertaking to emerge as the most buoyant and sentient large-scale Hollywood fantasy in recent memory  maybe ever.

The Return of the King is, of course, where it all comes together  where, as the title suggests, the erstwhile Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) finally ascends to his rightful place on the throne of Gondor (a sort of Zion with better fashion sense). Where, long before that can happen, there is the matter of the ring, still being toted to the hellfire of Mount Doom by the noble Frodo (Elijah Wood) and his tireless traveling companion, Sam (Sean Astin), under the suspect navigation of Gollum. Where there is also the matter of the growing, Third Reichesque Orc army, little deterred by its watery defeat at the end of The Two Towers. And where there is much, much more: battle scenes that equal or exceed anything that Jackson has previously staged; new characters, including a giant, agile spider that is perhaps the most terrifying arachnid ever to appear in a movie; and expanded roles for Bernard Hill, as the august King Théoden, and for Astin, who has been blessed with one of the cinemas great sidekick roles and who inhabits it with beautifully realized second-banana deference.

At 200 minutes, The Return of the King is both the longest film in the series and the most confidently paced, striking an ideal balance of combat and camaraderie  of those tender, character-building scenes that give the series its heart, and of those torrential combat engagements that give it its warrior soul  not quite present even in the extended, home-video versions of the first two films. Spoilsports will continue to claim that theyre not Middle-earth people, failing to see that the powers of the films lies not in their elaborate otherworldly trappings, but in their eternal mythic resonance. (Middle-earth might just as soon be the Middle Ages or the Middle East.) Others will find more defensible reason to fault Jackson  and even I might concede that, of the movies eight or 10 final scenes, there are two or three that should have found their way to the cutting-room floor. But the overall thrust of the film is so persuasive that such concerns end up seeming hardly worth the bother. After two years of waiting patiently to find out how this thing ends, the deep satisfaction of The Return of the King is in surrendering ourselves to the finale, in letting Jacksons superb storytelling (with due credit to co-screenwriters Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens) surround us like a blazing campfire tale  which it does, gloriously.

In the annals of movie trilogies, few have managed to seem more essential than opportunistic. By the time George Lucas and Francis Coppola  and, more recently, the Wachowskis  arrived at the end of their famous franchises, it felt as though they had run out of things to say, as though their Part 3s were motivated more by financial than artistic considerations.) And so, The Lord of the Rings stands nearly without precedent among modern movie trilogies, not only in its conception but in the fact that the films themselves really have gotten better, deeper, more enthralling as theyve gone along. As it draws to its volcanic, Wagnerian close, what surprises most about The Return of the King is how it begins to affect us emotionally in ways that we had no reason to expect a Lord of the Rings picture ever would. At which point, I was reminded of that lovely scene between Sam and Frodo that ended The Two Towers, wherein Sam wistfully pondered: I wonder if well ever be put into songs or tales. I wonder if people will ever say, Lets hear about Frodo and the ring. Well, this much is for sure: There will be songs sung and tales told about these movies for many generations to come. About how a wily Kiwi named Peter Jackson talked a Hollywood studio into risking hundreds of millions of dollars on a project that he would make on his home turf, far away from executives prying eyes. And about how, at a moment when there are so many indications that the classic achievements of the American film industry are long since past, he returned with one  or rather, three  for the ages.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING Directed by PETER JACKSON | Written by FRAN WALSH, PHILIPPA BOYENS and JACKSON, based on the book by J.R.R. TOLKIEN | Produced by BARRIE M. OSBORNE, JACKSON and WALSH | Released by New Line Cinema Citywide

Return of the Kid, or Mr. Critic Takes a Holiday

I think it was somewhere in the second hour of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King that I sank down in my seat, pulled my jacket up under my chin and let myself be 12 years old again. Blessedly, I wasnt there as a movie critic. One of the few benefits of being the second- or third-string guy in the film section is that you dont always have to take notes; you can go and slouch down in your seat and just be yourself, or, rather, your truest movie self, which isnt necessarily the exact same person who plays at being an adult in the sunlit world, or the self who takes half-legible notes at other movies, like a beauty-contest judge giving poise and elocution marks.Tonight, I was just a guy who sat down in the fifth row with one of his best pals (Im lucky to have more than one) at his side, stared hopefully up at the screen and was granted the one thing he needed most in the world  a sense of wonder. And right after that, wonders adjunct  joy. Tears too, for balance, and because Frodo and Sam broke my heart (if they dont nominate Sean Astin, I will lose my mind) and because, for those three hours and 20 minutes, my friend Jordan and I became those two hobbits, linked for all time by hardship and loyalty. Sure enough, afterward, saying goodnight at the car, we swore to each other (quite unnecessarily) that we would always carry one another up Mount Doom. And I drove home happy, because hes got my back, and because this epic, aching film reminded me that I havent seen everything after all; that movies are miraculous; and that within me, still, is the kid who used to pull his legs up under him, to be taller, to see more of the screen, who wondered, How do they do that? and at the same time didnt care, being grateful, simply, that there were shadow makers who knew the trick for taking him out of his body, out of his world. Which felt, then and now, like an act of salvation.

Chuck Wilson

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